Different from You: Failure to React
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Children aren't meant to make up for our failures or absolve us of our sins. When the world becomes a painful place to reside in, children are often the first to suffer for the mistakes made by those before them. A young father loses his only child because of the arrogance of other relations, and as a result, he makes a choice with repercussions after repercussions for everyone.


Creation began on 01-13-19

Creation ended on 02-15-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Failure to React

A/N: Children aren't meant to redeem their parents for their failures. You can't force children to bear the weight of your mistakes and not expect repercussions based upon the severity.

Fate was often always unkind to any that believed in it. It had always been cruel to him, no matter what he said or did; he was the universal punching bag of the unappreciated or unaccepted. And now, he sat here in a nightmare that was just waiting to end.

"Shinji Ikari," he heard his name being spoken, but he didn't respond. "Shinji Ikari."

Slowly, he turned to face a woman he'd only seen three times in his life. She was of average height, with short, reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes and wore a simple business suit.

"How are you feeling?" She asked him.

"Ask me in another half-hour," he responded, turning away as the door to his detainment cell opened up.

"I thought I'd try to convince you one last time," she told him.

"You should've stayed away, Dr. Shinju. Didn't you hear? They say I'm a war criminal now."

"NERV…is just a bunch of criminals that think they can decide everything. But they can't decide everything regarding you."

Then the woman, Dr. Shinju, held out a clipboard with a paper on it.

"They want me to write my would-be last will and testament?" He asked, not really caring.

"You wish I had something like that with me," she told him. "It's a consent form. By signing it, NERV can't claim your body as research material because you'd be donating it to an honorable cause. You would…get a second chance, through my family's research, to live again…if that's what you wanted."

Shinji looked at her again and uttered, "You know what they said I did…and why they're doing this. That man wanted me to pilot a giant robot against a monster that showed up the day I was supposed to meet him, and I refused because of what he and those people did. They killed my daughter and wouldn't let me save her when I knew I could've. So they're going to kill me because I wouldn't defend a city they had to destroy in order to defeat it. In their eyes, I don't deserve a second chance. I wouldn't even give myself one because I failed Shado. I promised I'd keep her safe, and I left her alone with those fiends."

She knew this transgression all too well; Shado Ikari, the bastard daughter of Shinji Ikari and the woman of the trio of people that kidnapped him five years ago, labeled an accidental death in a house fire that took her life, but the police and fire department couldn't tell if the fire was actually arson or not, even though Shinji believed the fire was deliberate because when he returned and discovered his daughter wasn't with his aunt and uncle like their cousin was, he was prevented from running in to save her. This, along with his father's abandonment of him and indifference to his personal grief, created nothing but a severity in the impossibility of any reconciliation between any of them. The family wouldn't even let him have his daughter's ashes.

"But I'm not the only one with a death sentence, am I?" He asked her. "I can't save anyone."

"I'm not concerned about my disease, Shinji," she explained. "My concern…has always been the future of people that suffer because of those that could give a little of what they don't need…and choose not to."

"I'll sell it to you."

"What do you want in exchange?"

"One last hug from someone I trusted."

"You're typical."

Even though it went against these so-called protocols, Dr. Shinju set the clipboard down and sat beside Shinji on the bench…and hugged him.

"Thank you," he told her, meaning it, and then picked up the clipboard and signed his name on the form before giving it to her.

Now, even if his life ended today, nobody from NERV, not even his father, could lay claim to his remains. Not that he intended to let them have them, anyway.

"Personally, I think you were in the right to refuse them, Shinji," she told him. "You weren't informed ahead of time and you weren't trained for anything. They're the monsters here."

"Thank you, but it changes nothing with them," he reminded her. "Just cut me up until there's nothing left to cremate."

-x-

"…For thou art with me. And thy rod and staff, they comfort me," the priest read from his bible as Shinji was strapped to the table and a needle inserted into his left arm.

So, this was how his fate was to be decided, through the chemicals that could either save lives…or end them.

The curtain in front of him was opened and his table was raised to make him face the people that came to watch.

"Shinji Ikari, do you have any last words?" The executioner asked him, and the boy, looking at the people that had looks of scorn towards him, nodded in the negative; he had nothing left to say to any of them.

Then the table was lowered down again, saving him from any further looks of scorn from the people he met that day at NERV that locked him up for refusing to operate a giant robot for them. He didn't care much for their hatred of him; it was on them for springing this up on him and he knew nothing of this beforehand. The sound of beeping noise caught his hearing and he started to feel slightly disoriented; they must've initiated the lethal injection process.

_Forgive me, Shado, for I couldn't save anyone,_ he thought, recalling the last smile his little girl gave him before he left to go get her the custom-made teddy they had worked on the day before. _I've missed you every day. Every…single…single…_

His hearing began to fade, followed by his breathing shallowing…and his vision blurring into the darkness. If this was how dying felt, it was the most subtle he had ever experienced.

-x-

"…So, the Medical Angel corporation was able to claim the Third Child's body after he was executed," Ritsuko Akagi expressed to Gendo Ikari in his office later after the execution, "it's not like we could do anything with it."

"The Committee will not be happy about this," he informed her; because the Third Child refused to pilot the Evangelion like he was supposed to, and because he wouldn't risk sending Rei Ayanami out there with her injuries, NERV had to relinquish authority of the mission to destroy the Third Angel back to the JSSDF, who were able to deal with the creature, but at the cost of destroying most of Tokyo-3. "They'll still demand for another scapegoat."

"Nobody's looking to take responsibility for the decision of a fourteen-year-old boy to refuse to pilot the Eva. The UN has already questioned Captain Katsuragi, who denies any responsibility on her part."

Everyone that had anything to do with the mission to defeat the Third Angel was being interrogated by the UN and they were all denying anything to why the boy had refused to do as instructed by his superiors. And the only person that could vouch for the boy's refusal to aid NERV…was the female doctor that went to see him before he was executed, this Dr. Shiori Shinju, whom worked for Medical Angel's Japan branch and had some history with Shinji and his daughter (whom she also suspected whose death wasn't some tragic accident).

"So she was the one who procured the consent form for his remains so that Medical Angel got a new corpse to study," Ritsuko confirmed. "I still don't see how or why she would vouch and defend his right to say no."

"She was the doctor that examined his daughter when she was sick," Gendo revealed. "Ever since she found out that he was a rape victim and a father, she took a special interest in the two."

"Could she have influenced his decision?"

"No, she only sees him on the appointments for his daughter whenever she needed a checkup or was sick. Beyond that, there were no other times of contact between the two…excluding the half-hour before his execution."

"Where is she now?"

"She's on her way back to Medical Angel with the Third Child's remains. Many of the personnel are relieved to be rid of him."

-x-

"…Ikari, there was no other way that this matter could've been resolved…more carefully?" SEELE 01 demanded of Gendo during their meeting. "First Unit-00, then Tokyo-2, and then Tokyo-3, each either damaged or destroyed because of the failure of those in charge. Even if you were solely responsible for the former and latter, you failed to deal with the Angel. How did this happen?"

"The Third Child arrived as scheduled," he explained, "but he refused to follow orders."

"You mean, your son, with whom you've had very little contact with over the years?" SEELE 06 questioned. "We reviewed the information received from the UN, and your son was never seen anywhere near or in Tokyo-3 or had any contact with NERV and, as a consequence of such, was never informed of the situation or even trained to handle it. The First Child was reported to have taken seven months to sync with the Eva…and you expected your son to sync with it moments after he had arrived? I'm starting to see a part of why he refused you!"

"If he was never made aware prior to the attack, and therefore never trained, and then expected to sync with the Eva…on mere luck or misguided faith, this is all the grounds necessary to hold you directly responsible for everything, Ikari," SEELE 01 declared.

"We had no time to retrieve the Second Child and we had yet to begin a search for the Fourth," Gendo tried to insist.

"So, you're denying your responsibility in this matter that led to the outcomes that displaced millions of people from their homes?" SEELE 10 asked him. "As the head of NERV, you're responsible for everything that happens, including the actions taken upon by the personnel."

There wasn't a single doubt in Gendo's mind, SEELE intended for him to take the fall since he was technically responsible for everything NERV-related.

-x-

It was either dumb luck or an act of God, but Misato's apartment was unscathed in the destruction of the city that defeated an Angel.

_The Angel was in the center of the city,_ she thought, checking to see if Pen-Pen was alright, _and this building was near the outer city limits to be exposed to the explosions._

With very little broken and the second refrigerator intact, Misato had to conclude that the warm-water penguin (once it came out of its dwelling) was fine…and was then left to ponder NERV's actions and the actions of the UN regarding the failure to deal with the Third Angel. She was present when the Third Child was executed for his refusal to pilot the Eva…and then she was interrogated for what happened prior to the destruction of the city, recalling everything that happened…and everything that didn't.

"_I won't do it,"_ Shinji expressed to them in the cage holding Unit-01. _"You can't just spring this on me and expect me to do something unrealistic. This isn't my problem, and you can't make it my problem. I have a right to refuse, and I'm exercising that right."_

"_If you don't pilot then we're all going to die, and that will be your fault," _Gendo explained to his son.

"_No, blame goes to the people in charge,"_ Shinji countered. _"The ones in charge have to take responsibility for the actions of those under them. If you knew that this…this thing was going to show up, then you had ample time to prepare for it. You had time to contact me beforehand and ask me to help you. You called me here, out of the blue, and then expect me to listen to you? You expect me…to go fight something I've never seen, knowing that nothing might even happen. Well, it's not going to happen! This is on you, old man! It's your mess, your mistake, your responsibility. Own up to it."_

_And the worst thing about it…was that he was right,_ Misato thought as she sat down in the kitchen. _He wasn't informed ahead of time, and his file was bare of information. He had a daughter that died earlier this year in a house fire that he blames his aunt and uncle over for not letting him try to save her, and then he gets called here and we spring this on him. Of course, he was likely to refuse right then and there, either for personal reasons or because he had doubts that he could even sync with the Eva. We were unprepared, and he called us out on it. We were responsible…and we killed him in the end. We killed him because he refused. That's on us._

-x-

Kozo Fuyutsuki, the sub-commander of NERV, stood in front of Unit-01, wondering if anything had happened as it was expected to, even though nothing went the way it was supposed to. He thought NERV was supposed to be better than its predecessor agency, GEHIRN, but instead, he viewed it as being the same, only worse than ever. A keystone to rebuilding the human race…just got finished with putting the nails in the metaphorical coffin of a teenaged father that lost his only child that he valued more than anything…simply because he wouldn't do what was expected of him. And what made him no better than the rest of NERV was that he knew what was going on beforehand. He knew…and did nothing.

"We failed to act," he uttered to the purple behemoth. "We failed…and killed him to cover up for our failure. You said that as long as he was here, everything would be alright in the end. He came…and nothing is alright. He was anything but alright."

"_Do you have any last words, Shinji Ikari?"_ The executioner had asked Shinji as he was faced with the people that came to see him die.

Fuyutsuki was among those present, and did nothing to stop the execution. He just sat there and watched as the boy that had been hurt by the world, that had a daughter by the cruelest souls of the world, lost to the same cruelties, get condemned because everyone in charge needed a scapegoat, someone to hold accountable for their mistakes when they were the ones that needed to be held accountable.

"I should've stopped you that day, Yui," he told the Eva. "No matter what happened, I should've had the experiment cancelled, terminated, because it would've prevented something like this."

Then he walked away, deciding that something else needed to happen to ensure that those responsible were held accountable.

-x-

_"Just cut me up until there's nothing left to cremate,"_ Shiori Shinju recalled Shinji telling her when she got his signature to have his remains transferred over to Medical Angel. _"It doesn't change anything."_

As she sat in her office, looking at a small photograph of the young man and his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, she wondered how far society as a whole had fallen since that horrid day fifteen years ago. Next to their picture was another picture of a young woman around Shinji's age with a little boy around Shado's age; the two teens had been friends since before Shinji had been kidnapped by three criminals, and from what she heard from Shinji, the girl took her son and ran away from home to escape her abusive mother. If she had to wonder any further to the answer, all she really had to do was look at these four souls and know that the people they lived with were the answer to the cause of their pain, suffering, and, in the case of two of them, death.

_I hope that Rumiko and Toya were able to get as far away from the girl's mother as possible, _she thought as she wished things had been different from before Shado had been murdered; no matter what the official report had been, there was no other way to justify the girl's death that wasn't an accident. _And I hope Shinji gets reunited with his little girl._

-x-

"…How bad is NERV's reputation after this?" Ritsuko Akagi asked Gendo in his office, two days after the execution of the Third Child.

"The Committee was less than pleased with the decision that was made in…rectifying the problem we had as a result of the aftermath," he told her.

"Rectifying? A fourteen-year-old boy was murdered by this agency because he refused to pilot the Eva, something that wasn't supposed to happen at all. Whatever his problem was with other people, he should've put them on hold and did what he'd been brought here to do. Instead, he refused out of spite, nearly causing the human race its future. He made us look ill-equipped in handling the situation because he chose not to pilot for us."

"And his refusal to do so still left undesired repercussions for us. The UN is questioning the reliability of the children we select for the Eva program…and whether or not they're willing to cooperate with us."

"Because one child proved to be unreliable?"

"Because the one that refused was related to me."

-x-

_…Commander Ikari said that the boy would pilot,_ thought the injured Rei Ayanami as she lay in recovery in the medical wing of NERV's trauma ward. _The Third Child was supposed to pilot the Eva…but he refused. He told the commander that he wouldn't do it, even when we were all in jeopardy. Did he say that he…had a daughter before he was brought here, that she was dead because of the people he was left with by the commander? Who was he? Who was his child that died?_

-x-

It didn't look like Hell, a place he was told constantly that was for bad people that he was categorized in out of disgust. It looked…pleasant to a degree, but lonely. There was afternoon sunlight, a warm breeze, a vast plane of grass, and a small, Japanese shrine.

"Daddy?" He heard a little girl's voice, and saw, sitting on the small steps of the shrine, a little girl with ebony hair and pale-brown eyes and dressed in a blue t-shirt looking at him. "Is that you, Daddy?"

Shinji, surprised to see his daughter here with him, slowly approached the shrine.

"Shado?" He asked her, taking in the sight of her, down to the strands of hair that reached her shoulders, unsure if this was a trick to tease his heart or if this was real.

"Are we lost, Daddy?" She asked him. "I remember everything was hot…and burning. I was trying to walk to the door to get outside, but my arms and legs were tied up. Then…there was only darkness and pain. Later, I was here. Are we lost?"

"No, baby," he responded, "we're not lost. We're just… We're free from our previous ties."

"You mean the people that didn't like us? We don't have to go back to live with them?"

"Yeah, baby, that's right. We don't ever have to see them again."

"Shinji? Shado?" They turned the teen father's right, seeing a girl about his age, with gray eyes and long, dark brown hair, accompanied by a little boy with the same eye and hair color.

The girl was dressed in a simple, white dress that reached down to her ankles with simple sandals while the boy wore an oversized, white shirt. It looked like both had seen better days like the teen father and his little girl.

"Rumiko? Toya?" Shinji asked. "Are you two…lost?"

"No, Shinji," the girl, Rumiko, responded. "We're just like you and Shado. Toya and I…are also free from our previous ties."

"But…we thought you two got away when you left your mother, Rumiko," Shado expressed her concerns to the teen mother.

"We did, Shado," Toya, the boy, explained. "We just didn't get far enough."

"My mother wasn't someone you were allowed to leave without there being repercussions," Rumiko revealed, which Shinji understood better than Shado did; Rumiko's mother…had more than likely tracked her daughter and grandson…and made the both of them nothing more than memories. "It doesn't matter, anymore, though. We still got away from her."

Shinji sat down beside his daughter and sighed at the subtle misery that befell the quartet at the shrine. He didn't know if this place was either some sort of paradise or penalty for their choices. If it was penance, it seemed somewhat pleasant. But if it was paradise, it was quiet.

"I honestly don't know if this is Heaven or Hell," he told them.

"It's Heaven, Shinji," Rumiko informed her as she and Toya came and sat down with them. "Our lives were Hell because of the people that hurt us."

"So, we had to live in Hell…just to get into Heaven?" Shado asked.

"Seems like it," Toya answered her.

"I don't like how it cost us to get here."

"What did it cost?"

"Everything," Shinji expressed his opinion; costing everything meant…everything from their right to live happy lives…to their rights to just live. "Everything we had…and everything we were denied."

Rumiko sat beside Shinji on his right and uttered, "There wasn't a day that came and went where we didn't think of what could've been if you two had come with us. I kept hoping that things would get better for you and Shado."

"The name Ikari may as well be an automatic death sentence. Those people just made things worse for us. The worse it ever got…was when I lost Shado."

"If I had known that was going to happen, I would've taken you both with us."

"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known."

"So…what do we do now?"

"I'd like it right now…if we all just sat here and enjoyed each other's company," Shado suggested for them.

"I'd like that, too," said Toya to them.

Their parents agreed with them and sat on the steps of the shrine. It felt like a nice moment for the four of them. There was nothing to ruin it. No hateful guardians, no abusive parents, no death threats or harmful agendas.

It was just two teen parents and their illegitimate children, sitting in a shrine in a grassy plane.

But as they sat there, Shinji started to wonder what was going on back where they used to be, where Hell had been on Earth. Maybe there wasn't anything else going on there. Or maybe there was, but he was certain on one thing: It wasn't his problem, anymore…and had never been his problem from the start. He was not out to play hero or soldier for anyone.

Fin

A/N: Well, this is probably the most angst incarnation of the _Different from You_ series I've ever written. It just came to me, and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down. Originally, I wanted to end it with NERV having to deal with multiple Angels and only two Evangelions after the inability to find pilots due to the public execution of Shinji for his refusal to aid NERV, but I decided against and leave the potential repercussions to the imaginations of the readers. The whole point of this story was to put Shinji in a scenario where he had something worth living for, but it was taken from him by the very ties of blood that hurt him, resulting in him no longer having anything left to live for, and as a result, nothing left to lose, so he didn't need to involve himself in other people's problems, no matter what he was told or how he was threatened by whoever wanted him to do something for them, such as piloting the Eva. But the other point of this story was to stress a belief that parents shouldn't force their expectations upon their children, as there can be repercussions, like the ones Gendo had to deal with because he made the decision to have Shinji killed for refusing…and how it was followed up to after the in-laws/aunt and uncle had Shado murdered out of their spite towards Shinji. In the end, it was the Ikaris that hated the most that caused the most suffering. Yeah, they were the cause of the most suffering inflicted upon the people that did nothing to deserve it.


End file.
